Welcome. Hen It's time for another SDH Network one, the one on Jason Longshore and I had the chance to catch up with Aaron Walker of South Georgia Tormenta this week. Aaron is moving into a new phase of his career. He re signed with the Statesboro based club as a player coach for the twenty twenty five season. Aaron, originally from the Metro Atlanta area, was a legend at Oglethorpe University, helping them to their first conference title in program history.
He's played all over the United States. He's played in Iceland professionally as well, but he's making a home for himself in Statesboro and it's exciting to see him start to think about that next step in his career. Our conversation started with a look back at the twenty twenty four season. Here's Aaron answering my questions about his reflections on last season.
We personally, I enjoyed it a lot.
We kind of struggled a bit to end the year, which which was a little disappointing. But I really enjoyed working with Ian last year, getting to know him, his principles, the way he wants to run a club. His vision is all, it aligns very well with mine and how I am as a player and even now, you know, trying to be a coach. I enjoyed it for the most part as much. States for itself is much different than Atlanta. So that's that's a bit of an adjustment,
but it's a little slower, but it's still nice. It's a nice It allows you to focus on your football, which I think is a good thing.
So overall, really nice.
It'll be good to have a full year to see and experience everything, both.
With the club and off the field.
So so you guys are underway in preseason this year, and you mentioned the coaching side. It's always an interesting transition and you're doing the half and half the season player assistant coach. You know what went into those discussions to join the coaching staff and how has it been so far in preseason getting ready to contribute on the field but also contributing off the field.
Yeah, it's a it's an adjustment, but one that I was, you know, prepared for, and I'm excited about. I made the decision this off season to start my B license, the pro B license course, and kind of going to try to use this year. This season as sort of that segue period. So I was thinking to myself, you know, I'll start the V license. I want to keep playing obviously, and see if coaching is for me. I've always, you know, thought I would like to be a manager, or it's just a manager at.
A high level.
And since I've been starting the course and getting more involved with it, it's been really enjoyable. So just trying to prepare and learn as much as I can as I go. Ian and and the staff have been very like welcoming, and like I said, their vision all lignes a lot with mine and how I see the game and how I want players to play and how I
want to play as a player. So it was it was kind of a no brainer with the author day throughout me and and it just all made sense and in values my opinion, which is something I've said a lot around that being in a place.
Of work where your opinion.
Is valued is it really really feels good and it speaks volumes of those people, and that's kind of a place I want to be. So just trying to get my legs under me as a from a player perspective, and that's still you know, I know how these preseasons go, you kind of got to pace yourself and work your way through it, and then off the field doing the coaching stuff.
It's been a it's been a fun balance.
It's obviously a lot and being, you know, having the mentality of a player when you're on the field, but also you can't just focus on yourself. You gotta be thinking about the group and we achieve our objectives and I exercise. I mean, it's just it's a lot to manage when you're really both, but I'm up for it.
It's exciting.
What's been the hardest thing as your career has progressed in terms of preseason on the player side and getting ready for that upcoming season. You mentioned pacing yourself. What's some of the real challenges that players face this time of year.
It's for me personally.
I I like training and doing stuff like that, so it's it's kind of a challenge to stay away from training as much as possible as I've gotten older. Now it's not extremely hard at this point, but it is difficult.
You know. I still enjoy going to the gym, I still enjoy running.
A lot, but as I've gotten older, I've stayed away from the ball a little more in the off seasons and tried to use the you know, six week period of being on the ball to be sharp because of how long the seasons are.
It's it's a good, good haul from February to November, so you know, you got to make sure you're you're sharp all the way through, and to do that, it's kind of a trial and.
Error process of how much you you burn yourself out early.
So you've seen the growth of USL League one first hand and it really feels like it's in a great spot to start to truly explode in the years to come. How important is this level in that overall growth of US soccer in your mind.
Massive, it's I mean there's more and more pro players trying to players trying to make it in the pro game. These these younger players now as you see all over the world are getting much more exposure, which is really cool. And these these leagues are can be platforms for these players to go and get that pro experience that they need and then move on to the higher levels. And I think that's that's super important. That's that's something that
wasn't always around when I was growing up. You know, it was, it was much seemed much more difficult to make it in the pro game.
There were less clubs, less opportunities.
As you see obviously, there's clubs popping up all over in the USL Championship, USL League One, there's even NISSA clubs just everywhere popping up, and there will be more to come next.
Year and more to come the years after that.
So giving these these younger players the exposure that they need to in the experience that they need. I mean, you can be a very good player, but playing in a game is much different than anything.
There's no simulation for that.
So they're getting these games that they need under their belt and being able to climb the ladder and go over to a europe or wherever that may be. And then it also continues to give exposure to the players that may be a little bit older who are still looking to find that ladder, maybe coming back from injury, and there's guys that drop down levels and need to come back from injury. They get games and then they can bounce back up. So US soccer is heading in
the right direction. There's a lot of exciting things to come in the next couple of years.
I think you're a prime example of that with what you're doing this year with you know, the opportunities for players growing and growing and growing is vital, but the opportunities for coaches, the opportunities for the referee side of things, the front office staff. You know, you've started your coaching journey here and this is a great opportunity, just like
you mentioned as a player, to get that experience. You can read all the books, you could take all the courses, but getting that hands on experience working with Ian Cameron. How important do you think that's going to be to jump starting the next phase for you in the game.
Yeah, that's I mean, that's the most important part. I mean, like you said, you can do all of the all the spreadsheets and all of the admin work, and all of the planning sessions on your own and diagramming and period periodization and all that stuff you can do find the scenes on the computer, but being dropped in and actually getting first hand live experience, you know, I'll be able to run phases of training and sort of be able to echo the coaching staff sit in on training
session planning and game breakdowns and clipping film and all that stuff is like it's so useful and I've learned even in the first two weeks, just an insane amount and it's crazy, like you don't quite realize. I mean, I didn't quite realize until I joined this coaching course kind of what all.
Goes into it.
And for the past two months I've kind of learned a good bit. But now, even being first hand, there's so many things you have to manage, and it's really exciting.
There's that balancing act between the technical side of coaching and look, it's the same for a player too in terms of the technique and the fitness, but then managing the people. You know, that's always a challenge as well that coaches face. How have your teammates responded to your new role.
Good? They've they've been very accepting.
Its interesting line because you know you have to you have to be you know, it's player first right now for me. But it's like you have to be a player and have the guys back, but then you also have to sit in on the meetings of the staff and help plan and stuff and then have have them and they have to be echoed. So it's a it's an interesting juggling act, but it's it's fun.
I'm everyone here has been super.
Accepting of of the role and you know, happy for me, and that makes such a big difference. It just obviously I was comfortable here last year, which is part of the reason why I wanted to come back and tell valued but having that again is it's really cool.
It's exciting to see the growth of everything in statesbro a tournament that's one of the great success stories in American soccer. You know, you've had a chance now be in there for a little while. You've seen the talent coming up through the program. Talking about academy kids, you know, an area of the country that we might not think of when it comes to developing players, but you're seeing better and better players come out of that area every season.
It feels like, yeah, there's a we have a few academy kids here now that train with us, and there's been a few that have moved on to the higher, higher levels. And I believe it was just recently one of the guys that played in this academy just made his debut for the US it was a.
Week or two ago and did well.
So there's a ton of talent around here in the Savannah area. That I think can get overlooked. But Georgia as a whole obviously has a ton of talent. I grew up in north of Atlanta and it's a hotbed. So it's cool to see some of these guys get the.
Notice that they deserve.
Yeah, it feels like, you know, it feels like the South in general has been overlooked in terms of soccer talent. Georgia has Atlantic gets some of that hype, and especially with Atlanta United, but now it feels like the rest of the state is really starting to catch up. How do you think the season is looking for Tormento? What what are kind of the main focuses for you guys in preseason and you get ready to start USL League one and amount of months time.
We feel good about where we are. We are for sure right now.
There's still a lot that needs to be done, a lot of building blocks and foundational pieces that we have to sort out before we can make bigger steps. But that's what preseason is about. It's a slow, slow process. We have some very good, you know, exercises, and we play the Charleston Battery, who play Tampa Rowdies. We play Atlanta United too. This coming weekend, some very good runouts for us. That gives us an idea of where we're at, but in certainly wanted to be.
A little bit more dynamic going forward this year.
We've added quite a few wingers that you know, not that we didn't have a lot of talent last year, but a little bit quicker, a little bit more dynamic pac so that from from the way that we play, have a little bit more of an idea how we want to how we want to attack, and be a little bit more dynamics.
So we feel good about it. We're excited. Uh after this weekend, well, like I said, we'll have a really good idea of where we're at.
We can kind of adjust, but we're seeing a lot of the the behavioral things that we needed to see early on, which is a huge piece of it, you know, the sacrifice, the putting your body on the line, the tracking back, the transitional play, being a habit like defensively and attacking.
So the things that we've wanted to see have been there.
So it's nice good building blocks as you guys get started. Hopefully I will have a chance to see you guys on Saturday. We'll try to watch that with it Land United to the first team for at Land United is playing in Bradenton and we're doing a stream of that one, but I'll be at the facility, so when it ends, I'm gonna trying to walk out. Get an eye on how things are going for Tormento this season. Nice, nice,
looking forward to it. Aaron, thank you so much, best of luck in your new role, and thank you for taking.
Some time boys, I appreciate it. Thanks for having me. Jason